Something To Sing About
by WeirdEmmaline
Summary: Sequel to "Forgotten Melodies." A retelling of Phantom of the Opera from multiple POVs that spans decades before and after the original story. (Updates on Sunday evenings (central time zone))
1. Part One: Erik (Chapter One)

_**[AN] I just can't do anything on a schedule. Hello dear readers, I'll try to make this initial author's note brief. This is the sequel to Forgotten Melodies. One thing you'll find is that this one is not written in any manner of linear timeline. It's done that way for a reason and that will become apparent as the story progresses.**_

 _ **This one will only be updating once every two weeks to begin. Wednesdays, the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month. Again, this one will be available for purchase on the kindle and in paperback before it is done being posted here (and posting will pick up here after the new year probably).**_

 _ **As always, if you notice a typo or any sort of grammatical screw up, PLEASE let me know in a review or PM. I do my best to proofread my stuff but it happens sometimes that I miss stuff.**_

 ** _Reviews in general are totally encouraged. I love reading reviews. I probably won't bother you too often with these author's notes. Let's begin._**

 ** _[AN edit] I've gone through and fixed some tenses and a couple of other typos. Thank you immensely to those who've pointed errors out to me, I really appreciate it!_**

Chapter One

The Catacombs of Paris, 1885

"Christine…." The name was barely a breath as it escaped from the yellow, papery lips of a man near death. Sharp bone protruded under paper-thin yellowed skin covered in tattered rags that had once been expensive finery. Years ago he had been an imposing figure. Now he was far more corpse-like than he ever had been. Death was his closest companion, but even Death seemed unwilling to come too close to him.

"Chris _tine_." The word was spoken with far more urgency the second time as he curled into the fetal position. His eyes were screwed shut as tight as his weakened body would allow and every inch of him trembled with fear as a dream filled with unspeakable horrors danced through his unconscious mind. He thrashed and kicked in a desperate, futile attempt to fend off the aggressors in his dreams.

"No— No!" He sat bolt upright, his entire body drenched in cool sweat. He clutched his chest as deep, terrible coughs ripped through his body, echoing through the empty space that surrounded him. It was only as he worked to regulate the speed and shallowness of his breathing that he realized his face was colder than it was meant to be.

In the near pitch-black darkness of the catacombs the man frantically flailed and dragged his hands across the ground looking for the one article of clothing he could never do without. _No_ , he thought, _please, I need my mask, where did it_ —

His hand bumped against something cool and smooth and with too-eager fingers he snatched it up, brushed it against the ragged silk of his shirt before placing it back on his face. At once his mind quieted and his shaking steadied. Well, steadied as much as it could. He shivered nearly constantly then, his body completely unable to regulate his internal temperature as it ate away at itself in a last ditch attempt to stay alive.

Enshrouded in such blackness as that which filled the catacombs no one would ever have the opportunity to view the man's face, but without his mask he felt vulnerable. Naked and alone.

His skin ached where it made contact with the mask and he could feel a blistering rash forming across his forehead and left cheek, but to go without the mask simply was not possible.

He pressed his back against the wall and surveyed his surroundings. The catacombs heaved a musty sigh as another pitiful creature entered the twisted labyrinth of corridors beneath the city. He looked up and down the long corridor but saw no evidence of anyone approaching. He could hear none of the usual whispers and muffled cries of the others that occupied that particular area.

"Erik," a woman's voice called suddenly, breaking up the maddening silence. The name caused the corpse-like man to sit back up and look for the source. It was a name he hadn't heard in many, many months spoken by a voice he could never forget.

"Christine?" he croaked as he tried to pull himself to his feet. His knees wobbled and refused to bear his weight, sending him crashing back to the ground. When did I become so weak?

"Erik." The name floated through the still air again. The skeletal man tried again and again to pull himself to his feet. On his fifth try he managed to stay standing, if only by leaning heavily against the wall.

Each step forward was torturous, but the man hobbled along and tried his best to ignore the pain.

"Hurry, Erik."

"Christine? Can it be?" His words were barely more than a breath. "Christine?"

He listened, but all he could hear was the fading echo of his own labored breathing. He stopped, leaning almost his entire body against the wall as the world seemed to spin. His vision began to fade as he sank against the wall.

"Erik, please."

"You've come back," he cried as he forced himself forward. As he stumbled along he realized he could hear a second set of footsteps approaching from behind him. They were far off yet, but before too long they would be right on top of him. "Oh, Christine!"

His broken voice echoed through the empty space in a way that the voice he was hearing didn't, but neither did he notice or care. So far gone was the man now that the hallucinations he experienced were completely intertwined with his view of reality. So far gone that he no longer felt his stomach twisting and churning as it digested his continued diet of nothing.

About fifteen paces ahead he was certain that he saw a woman in a white dressing gown. She was smiling at him, arms outstretched.

"Erik?" The sound of his name being spoken from behind caused him to shift his focus, and in doing so he stumbled and he fell. This time he would be unable to stand again of his own accord. "I think it's really him this time." The voice of the woman that spoke then was familiar, but the emaciated man couldn't quite place it.

"He's long dead, I can assure you," another voice, male this time, said. Erik recognized it immediately.

 _The little fop_ , he thought, narrowing his eyes angrily. _What could he possibly want with me now?_

 _And why can't I just die?_


	2. Chapter Two

_**AN: HEY GUYS! It's the fourth Wednesday of the month and that means it's update day! Again, thank you to everyone who pointed out typos/grammatical errors/other issues in chapter one. I have gone back and fixed all errors pointed out to me. I hope you will enjoy chapter two! Onward!**_

 **Chapter Two**

 **Paris, 1877**

The wee hours of an early autumn morning found Hesham skulking about the catwalks that hung precariously above the stage and allowed the stagehands to keep everything running smoothly. The city was just beginning to stir as he dropped from one narrow walkway to another causing it to sway disconcertingly but surprisingly not making too much noise. Far below him, stagehands and a few stray ballet rats walked back and forth across the stage, breathing life into the slumbering opera house with every footfall.

Soon the stage would be filled with singers and dancers and soon Hesham would need to take his leave so as not to be seen. Already he could hear stagehands climbing the ladders and staircases that would lead them to the very catwalk on which he was currently perched, but he was unwilling to move just yet. He hadn't seen her yet.

The blonde that had entranced him at first sight had yet to make her appearance. Fautimeh wasn't there yet, either. Hesham was relieved to note this; the two girls were near inseparable. He almost never saw the blonde without Fautimeh close by her side. When she was alone it was only for a brief period, usually to change her clothing or draft a letter.

He eyed a thick rope tied to the railing of the catwalk on which he stood, following it up to where it looped around a pulley before attaching to a backdrop painted with orange and yellow leaves. He didn't know what it was about that particular rope— one of four he could see attached to that particular backdrop— but it felt important in that moment to take note of it.

Joseph Buquet's voice cut through the quiet murmuring of those already warming up their voices onstage. "Who's already been in the rafters?" he demanded. Hesham turned his attention to him and watched with great amusement as Buquet chewed out a stagehand for not securing a sandbag that had nearly hit him that morning.

"But monsieur I have only just arrived! I swear! And I'm terrified of heights, I avoid the catwalks unless I have to go up there!"

For the briefest of moments, the stagehand seemed to morph into a terrified little boy with a burlap sack pulled over his head. Buquet was no longer himself, either. No, Buquet, for the briefest of moments, was an immaculately clean-looking Persian man. Hesham's blood ran cold as his eyes deceived him in this manner.

He blinked twice and they were themselves once more but he was certain he'd just seen himself cowering before Firouz. He shuddered and shook his head, unwilling to allow painful memories from his past to surface. The freak show was not a period of his life that he revisited often outside of the nightmares that plagued him when he would finally allow himself to sleep.

Laughter like the tinkling of thousands of tiny bells hit his ears and he turned to find the blonde and Fautimeh crossing the stage to join a group of giggling girls that included Meg Giry. He watched with great interest as Fautimeh threw her arms around the little Giry, but the blonde was hesitant to properly join the group. Though he could not quite make out her expression from the angle at which he viewed her, he was certain she was as uncomfortable in a crowd as he was.

 _Or_ , he mused, _she could be wary of little Meg._ _She does come off rather intimidating_. And it was true, of the girls in the corps du ballet Meg was easily the most intimidating. It was a fact she was well aware. She used it to her advantage at every opportunity.

"Christine!" an all too familiar voice called from the edge of the stage. Hesham looked over to find Saeed beckoning to the blonde. He narrowed his eyes as the girl skipped across the stage to where the Persian stood. _What does_ he _want,_ he wondered.

Saeed spoke too quietly to Christine for Hesham to hear. From the way she bounced around, he assumed she'd just been told good news. When she turned to hurry back over to her friend, Hesham's breath caught in his throat at the sight of her wide, toothy grin. It was the first time he'd seen her smile so wide. The beauty of it caused the deformed man physical pain.

The girls were brought to attention by a stern looking woman with a black cane. She instructed them to begin warming up in a kind yet firm tone and the girls lined up and did as they were told. Hesham watched them for a few short minutes before deciding the approaching stagehands had gotten close enough. Up he would go onto a platform all his own, that none of the workers of the opera house had access to.

He watched as they rehearsed for an upcoming performance of an opera that didn't interest Hesham. It was something new by some fop and from what he'd heard at rehearsals it was as forgettable as an opera could be. Only the faintest strains of music could be heard where he stood, but that was how he preferred it when Carlotta attended a rehearsal.

As rehearsals began to wind down for the day, Hesham crept lower to more effectively eavesdrop on those still on the stage below.

"You'll not want to linger too long, ladies," Joseph Buquet's voice caught his attention. Hesham looked over to find the man lecturing a gaggle of girls who were still practicing their choreography for act three. Fautimeh and Christine— _Oh Christine, what a beautiful name—_ were among the girls he was currently speaking to. "The Phantom's lurking about."

"There is no Phantom," Fautimeh replied, shaking her head and crossing her arms across her chest. She reminded Hesham so much of her father, whose current whereabouts were questionable. Had he left after delivering news to Christine? Would he be waiting by the lake? "Father says there's perfectly reasonable explanations for every strange happening here at the opera house."

"Oh he does, does he?" Buquet asked, batting his eyelashes and pressing his fingers to his chest. "Well excuse me all to hell. If there's a perfectly reasonable explanation, I'm all ears."

Hesham leaned in, his interest piqued, as Fautimeh opened her mouth to reply.

A terrified shriek rang out, distracting everyone from Fautimeh as they all frantically looked about. Hesham saw little Giry pointing up at him— directly at him— and screaming at the top of her lungs. He had to commend her on her lung capacity.

"He's there! The Phantom of the Opera!" she cried.

 _How did she notice me?_ He wasn't sure he would ever know. He thought he was fairly well hidden in the shadows. What was she doing looking up so high?

The other girls shrieked and gathered round Meg to look.

"There's nothing there." This time it was Christine who spoke. Hesham held his breath as he backed further into the shadows. _Is the little Giry lying?_ "You're just trying to frighten us."

"I swear it, I saw him!" Meg insisted. Hesham watched her, searching her face for some sign that she was being earnest. There was a mischievous twinkle in her eye that the others seemed to mistake for welling tears. She had simply been lucky, he decided. She hadn't seen him. He shifted his attention to Christine. The defiance in her tone when she'd dismissed Meg's claim was refreshing. It reminded Hesham of someone.

 _Azadeh_. The name hit him like a bag of bricks to the chest. He'd pushed her from his mind for so long that he'd nearly forgotten about her. _If Christine saw my face, would she look upon me with such horrified pity as Azadeh did so many years ago?_

"If indeed it was the Phantom, you girlies had best take your leave. He preys on the young and beautiful," Buquet said, waggling his eyebrows at the ballet rats.

Again, for the briefest of moments, Hesham saw Firouz where Buquet stood. His blood ran cold. This man was just like the man who'd run the freak show. The parallels in how they held themselves, in how they spoke as though they were the smartest person in the room by default, indeed in how they treated those they deemed their subordinates awoke an anger deep within Hesham. He knew that the man known as Joseph Buquet would need to be dealt with before he had the chance to do to any of the girls what had been done to Hesham in his youth.

He watched as Christine took Fautimeh by the hand and skipped along back to the dormitory. She would have singing lessons that evening. That would be the next time Hesham would venture out of his home he decided. Until then he had a stack of books awaiting his attention beside his favorite chair.

As he made his way back down to the cellars, he could've sworn he heard someone calling his name. He paused on several occasions to listen and wait only to find there was nobody there. It had been more than one hundred hours since he had last slept and still he fought the exhaustion that was beginning to ache in his bones.

While his body begged for reprieve, his mind was alert and brimming with ideas. He ached to learn just as his body ached for rest. Even if he tried to sleep he found it impossible. His mind would not slow down for long enough for sleep to take him and when he gave up, frustrated, he would find himself ever more exhausted than he had been prior to the attempt.

As he crossed the lake he again heard someone calling his name. This time when he stopped to listen, his name was repeated. He turned to find Saeed waiting for him at the edge of the lake in front of his home, waving a lantern at him and smiling that infuriating little smile of his. Groaning, he contemplated turning back and taking care of Joseph Buquet immediately rather than dealing with the Persian, but he decided against it. Saeed was unendingly patient. He would likely still be waiting when Hesham returned from that errand.

"What have I done to offend you _this_ time, Saeed?" Hesham asked as he pulled his tiny boat ashore.

"Can an old friend not simply stop by for a friendly visit?" Saeed countered. Hesham sighed, rolling his eyes.

"I would _hardly_ consider you an old friend. What are you doing here?"

"These rumors that are spreading, that the opera house is haunted by a malevolent spectre—"

"What I do is none of your business, Saeed."

"It's extortion!"

"It is between myself and the managers."

"You are playing a dangerous game, Hesham." The way the Persian said the name caused the masked man to flinch. From the way the Persian's eyes changed, Hesham was certain he'd seen the flinch and counted it as a win. "I know you're smarter than this. If you would put half as much thought into a proper, above-the-table endeavor, you could have a legitimate address and a small fortune in no time."

Hesham laughed darkly. "You can't honestly believe something so foolish, old man. Or perhaps you've forgotten that which lurks behind my mask? Nobody wishes to employ someone so terrifyingly ugly."

"Hesham—"

"You've no idea the struggles I faced on my own. You know nothing, least of all what really happened that night in my mother's flat." It was as he spoke of that fateful night that his voice betrayed him, cracking and sticking in his throat.

" _Hesham_ —"

"You should go, Saeed. Understand you are not welcome here again. I will protect my current life, this life I have worked for, by whatever means necessary," he snarled. When the Persian didn't move, a low growl escaped Hesham's throat and he lunged at him, shoving him against the wall.

"You have already forfeit your right to snoop around in my life, Saeed," he hissed. "When you decided you couldn't trust that I was telling you the truth all those years ago." He let Saeed go and took one small step back.

"Hesham, please just—"

"Go now and leave me, Saeed. Do not come back."

"But Hesh—"

" _Go now!_ " Hesham roared. His words echoed through the chamber. He wouldn't have been shocked to learn that there were stagehands that could hear that particular howl. "Before I deign to make an orphan of your daughter."

The pain he saw in Saeed's eyes at his words caused him heartache he wasn't aware he was still capable of feeling. He quickly looked away as Saeed turned and started the long walk back up to the surface. Oh, how Hesham wished he could retrieve the words he'd let fly too flippantly, but they were out and both he and his former friend knew that they were precisely what he meant to say. _Stay away now, Saeed. I can't bear to see you again._


	3. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

 **Perros-Guirec, 1879**

The sun is low in the sky, casting lazy shadows across the snow-covered graveyard. It is there that Hesham has spent the day hidden behind angel statues and tombstones as he waited for a chance to impress the girl that had enthralled him with her voice. Every so often he had taken up the violin that lay beside him and played a few bars of some lonely tune or another that he'd learned in his furious studying of music in an attempt to be a proper teacher for Christine. The music had already attracted a few townspeople to the cemetery over the course of the day, but none stayed very long.

How he wished she would have traveled alone. When she'd arrived in Perros-Guirec the night before she'd had two additional people in tow. Fautimeh had been a given; if Christine had need to travel she almost always had the Persian girl by her side. Hesham surmised that Saeed had tagged along for the safety of his daughter.

Though with his heightened activity as of late at the opera house, Hesham did not doubt that the Persian was also there to protect Christine. There was no doubt that Saeed had picked up on Hesham's near-obsession with the girl. There was no doubt that Christine had told, at the very least, Fautimeh of her angel. If Saeed were aware—

He pushed the thought out of his mind and rubbed his gloved hands against each other in a vain attempt to warm himself.

 _I will give her until sundown to arrive,_ he thought with a shiver. _If she is not here by sundown, I shall return home—_

He didn't quite have the chance to finish his thought as he was distracted by the melodic creak of the cemetery gate swinging open. He peeked out from his hiding spot and saw her.

Her abundance of golden curls were pulled back with a plain brown comb and her pale skin had just the slightest hint of pink from the cold. Her icy blue eyes twinkled like the snow in the sunlight. She was dressed warmly in a cloak Hesham had personally ordered for her. The pride welling in his heart at the thought of her wearing a gift he'd given her threatened to leave him a sobbing mess. That she'd choose to wear something he'd spent so much time and effort picking out especially for her was simply unfathomable to him. Tears streaked his cheeks, freezing before they reached his jawline.

He heard Christine speaking, but he couldn't quite make out her words. _Is she alone? Has she forgotten our agreement and brought Fautimeh or Saeed?_ His face twisted into a scowl as he considered the idea that Christine would not hold up her part of the deal.

As she made her way through the cemetery to her father's grave, it became apparent to Hesham that she had, indeed, come alone as promised.

"Every year that passes without you here by my side grows colder. I wish we'd never left Sweden, Papa. Everything has become so frightening. Papa, what do I do? What am I to do?" Tears were welling in her eyes and her voice was beginning to catch in her throat.

"My angel— the angel you promised you would send to help me— would have me abandon my oldest and dearest friend simply because my feelings for him have become more important to me than music. But Papa, you remember Raoul. He is a kind and decent gentleman. Papa… What am I to do?"

Hesham felt his heart breaking as she spoke. He couldn't allow her to remain in contact with the vicomte, but to cause her such pain was more than he could bear.

The girl spoke a few more sentences before falling silent. The sun was beginning to duck behind the trees that lined the property and the buildings of the town, casting ever-longer shadows across the ground.

With a sad sigh, she turned to leave after a few moments shivering in the cold. It was only then that Hesham began to play the violin. As his music reached Christine's ears she stopped in her tracks.

"Papa?" she murmured, slowly turning to face his grave once more.

"Have you forgotten our arrangement?" Hesham asked in the authoritative voice he reserved for speaking to the girl. Her eyes widened. She _had_ forgotten that her angel would wait for her in the cemetery. The proof was on her face.

"Forgive me, I beg you," she pleaded, falling to her knees.

"I have asked so very little of you and you have taken so much from me."

"I am sorry," she said. Hesham was unsure she meant it.

 _The little vicomte has poisoned her against me,_ he thought. He was positively certain of it. As he opened his mouth to say more, he heard the gate to the cemetery open and close. They were no longer alone. He closed his mouth as quickly as he'd opened it.

"Christine?" A man's voice drifted across the snow-covered graveyard. _Saeed_ , Hesham thought angrily. _Of course it would be Saeed_.

"I am here," Christine called back, quickly standing up and brushing the snow from her skirts. Hesham watched as he had when she had been begging her deceased father for life advice just minutes before.

"You're late for supper, sweetheart."

Christine gasped and put her hand over her mouth. "Oh my," she said. "Have I really been out here so long?"

"Were it not such a cold night, I might've waited longer," Saeed admitted. "Fautimeh was having none of it. She really does adore you, Christine. She kept saying she was having visions of a demon stealing you away from your father's grave."

"A demon?" Christine asked, incredulous.

"She always has had quite the vivid imagination," Saeed replied, shaking his head dismissively. He looked past Christine to the large headstone behind which Hesham was hiding, and for a terrifying moment Hesham was certain that he'd been spotted.

"Come now, Christine. Let us return before Fautimeh becomes any more distraught. You can visit your father again in the morning before we leave."

Saeed led her out of the cemetery and out of Hesham's sight, but the deformed man did not move until long after they were gone. _He's always ruining everything,_ he thought. _Every time I try to advance he's standing there in my way. I think it's high time I remind him who he thinks I am._

It was a long walk back to the old Valerius house from the cemetery, but Hesham was glad for it. He'd been sitting there for the majority of the day and his joints had gotten quite stiff. It felt good to move, even if it didn't quite help how cold he'd gotten.

As he walked, he contemplated his choices. He knew what he _should_ do, but it was nowhere near what he _wanted_ to do. And in a mind such as his, "wanted" would always trump "should".

Once home, he built a small fire in the fireplace in the study and he pulled his favorite chair up nice and close.

He stacked a few books next to the chair and took a leather-bound notebook and pencil and he sat in the chair, facing the fireplace. _She will bow to my will. If I have to make it so she has no other choice, Christine Daaé_ will _be mine. He can't love her as I do. Nobody can._

And so there he sat for long hours as night took the town. The moon was high in the sky when finally he put down the pencil and cracked his neck. Hunched over a stack of books in his lap three deep he'd formulated what he considered to be the perfect plan to force Christine's hand in choosing him, her _angel_ , over some broad-shouldered vicomte.

He stood and stretched before slipping on a thick black cloak and wide-brimmed hat to match. It was only then that he realized he'd neglected to remove his mask upon returning home. It wasn't often that he forgot to remove his mask.

Before he left the house, he took the violin— Nils Daaé's violin— and stashed it in one of the endless pockets hidden within his cloak.

He approached the inn where they were staying as a cloud obscured the moon, dimming the ambient glow of the snow. Hesham relished the extra cover it provided as he decided on a hiding spot and brought out the violin.

He watched her for a long moment before lifting the bow to and beginning to play. She looked so peaceful and angelic in her slumber. He almost hated that he would wake her now, but he was certain that it was necessary. He removed a note that he had tucked into his breast pocket and slipped it through the crack at the bottom of the window and began to play a lullaby he knew she'd recognize.

Christine Daaé was not the one aroused from their slumber that night, however. Beside her, Fautimeh rolled onto her side but continued to sleep. Christine's eyelids didn't even flutter. The Daroga, however, was awake before Hesham made it to the fifth note of the lullaby.

When he approached the window and saw the letter, he knew precisely what was happening. Before Hesham could react, he snatched up the letter and tore it to shreds.

He then threw open the window with casual abandon and stuck his head out.

"I know you're there, Hesham. Leave the girl alone! She does not need you meddling in her life!"

It was then that Christine roused, to Hesham's dismay. _Quiet, you great booby!_ _You'll ruin everything!_

"Monsieur Rahimi, what is going on?" Christine asked, clutching the blanket to her chest.

Saeed remained at the window, looking around wildly for any sign of Hesham. The disfigured man was wedged not-entirely-comfortably behind the woodpile at the back of the inn, just a few steps from their window. In the shadows he could hide forever. Saeed did not see him.

"I am sorry for waking you, Christine. I thought I had spotted someone looking in through our window at you young ladies."

"Someone was looking in at us?" Christine sounded terribly alarmed. Hesham sighed. The Daroga had ruined everything for him once again.

He decided then that it would be the last time the Daroga would be allowed to disrupt his life in such a way.


	4. Chapter Four

_**AN: Hello, all! This is the chapter that almost didn't post, I completely forgot that there was a chapter due today and I wasn't quite finished with Chapter Four. But here it is!**_

 _ **I will warn you, there is some implied... Ickiness... between Firouz and The Boy in this one. Nothing explicit, but I know that makes many people uncomfortable.**_

 ** _Anyway, onward!_**

 **Chapter Four**

 **1852, Belgium**

Somewhere in the west of Belgium, the freak show came to a grinding halt on its slow pilgrimage east. It had been raining for five days already when one of their carts got stuck in the mud and one of their horses sank to its death in a flooded ditch. That was the day that Firouz decided they should stop and wait it out.

The deformed boy had been one of the first to be unloaded, a thick chain attached to the metal shackle round his neck before he was left alone in the mud. A small, torn piece of canvas was pulled across two large crates to provide him some shelter from the pouring rain, but it did little for the painful cold that seeped into his bones through the mud puddle in which he sat. He had no shirt, just a ragged pair of trousers and an old burlap sack that covered his face.

He stayed huddled against one of the crates with his arms folded across his chest and his legs tucked underneath him in the mud. It did little to keep him warm, but it was the best he could do for himself.

As it continued to storm the boy was pretty well left alone. He had to fix his makeshift shelter on his own once before he abandoned trying to keep the canvas taut between the crates in favor of using the sagging, soaked piece fabric to shield him from the wind.

As the rain finally slowed and stopped, the boy watched Firouz and his men run around the camp and assessing their losses. He watched as they passed him again and again, seemingly completely unaware that he was even still there or alive.

Perhaps it was that they hoped he would die. At ten years old he was so scrawny that Firouz often commented that he would likely lose the little monster any day now.

His stomach growled as the scent of meat cooking filled the air. It had been days since anyone had thrown him any scraps and any fat stores he'd built up had burned off as he'd shivered under the wet canvas tarp.

Heavy wet footsteps caught the boy's attention and he turned to look just as a burly man tore the tarp away from him. He turned and left wordlessly, leaving the boy to shiver in the mud. The boy whimpered as he ran his hands up and down his arms in a feeble attempt to warm up.

As he sank deeper into the little mud puddle he was sitting in, he could hear another set of footsteps approaching him. As he looked up to see who it was he was roughly pulled to his feet and the chain was removed from his neck.

"I was sure we would be counting you among what was lost," Firouz said as he dragged the boy along. "It wasn't until the rain began to let up that I remembered where I had stowed you, boy. I shall never understand how you manage to survive."

The boy said nothing as he tried to keep up with the man that led him along. He could think of several things to say in a few different languages, but he knew that anything he could possibly say would just lead to pain down the line. _Perform a trick just once_ …

Firouz threw him into a lavish, if a bit damp, tent, where he left him unbound for a few delicious seconds as he spoke in a language the boy couldn't understand to a young girl who stood near the center of the tent. She hurried out shortly after and Firouz turned his attention back to the boy.

"Tonight you shall dine with me," he told the boy as he brought out a length of silken rope. He bound the boy's wrists together and pulled him around through the tent to a large wooden barrel that was about half filled with cool, clear water. "And I refuse to dine with anyone so caked with mud and muck."

The boy simply looked between the barrel and the man with confusion and a slight hint of fear in his eyes. Everything he showed Firouz was carefully calculated. He couldn't show too much fear, nor could he act completely fearless.

The girl returned with two large pitchers of steaming hot water. She sashayed past Firouz and the boy and poured the hot water into the barrel before leaving the tent once more. Firouz pushed the boy forward until he was just beside the barrel before yanking his trousers down and ripping the mask from his face.

A horrible wail tore itself from the boy's chest as he scrambled to hide himself with arms bound at the wrist and elbow. The sounds he made grew increasingly distressed as he fought against Firouz, who picked him up as easily as he had when the boy had been but a toddler.

He all but threw the boy into the barrel, pushing him down until he was sitting at the bottom. His gaping nose-hole was just a breath above the surface of the water, something which calmed him down very quickly. He'd breathed water in a few times during the rainstorm and he didn't like the way it burned.

Firouz tied the free end of the rope that bound him to a stake just beside the barrel and stepped away to fetch some sweet smelling soap. As he gathered the necessary items to bathe the boy, the girl returned and dumped another pitcher of hot water into the already fairly warm bath. The boy yelped and flailed as he fought to keep his nose above the water.

The way Firouz had positioned him made it quite difficult for him to move at all, which only made him struggle harder.

He got a nose full of water as Firouz re-entered the tent. Thrashing wildly as he fought not to breathe water in, he finally managed to free one of his hands and pull himself up enough that he could breathe as he coughed and choked on the water that threatened his lungs. Firouz watched and laughed as the boy struggled.

"Shall I dump in the soap, and perhaps my wash as well?" he asked as he watched the boy struggle. "If you'll cease your flailing, I can help you."

The boy struggled on for another moment or two as hot water splashed up into his face once more, but eventually calmed enough that he could support himself against the sides of the barrel. The wood was rough and splintery against his skin, which was thin and papery and easily broken. He would have plenty of painful splinters by the end of this torturous bath. He wasn't looking forward to that reality.

Before he could prepare himself, Firouz dumped the entirety of a bottle of a flowery-smelling oil over the top of his head. It burned his eyes and nasal cavity with such severity that he lost his grip on the side of the barrel and fell back below the water. The water came as little relief from the oil, especially as it flooded his sinuses and caused panic to set in once more. He flailed and kicked, but everything he found was solid wood that didn't offer him any support.

Quite suddenly, a thin length of rope found its way around the boy's neck, pulling him up quite firmly. Firouz was careless; he easily could've broken the boy's neck with the way he jerked the rope about. As it was, the boy managed to cough and sputter most of the water out of his sinuses and throat, but once the water was gone he found he still couldn't breathe. Firouz laughed as he held the boy up by the rope, dangling him just high enough that he had no chance of finding his footing.

The boy's vision began to falter as he clawed at the rope that bit into his skin. He fought with every ounce of strength he had as Firouz only laughed harder. As the boy's eyes drifted shut and his flailing slowed, Firouz finally released him, allowing him to fall back into the barrel. As the boy coughed and wheezed in a frantic bid to get as much air as possible to his aching lungs, Firouz washed him. Though Firouz was incredibly rough, the soaps and oils he rubbed into he boy's skin were softer than the finest of silks. Even the cloth with which Firouz washed him was softer than anything that had graced the boy's poor skin in his life.

When Firouz was finished washing the boy, he dragged him violently out of the barrel by the rope that still hung around the boy's neck. The boy fell in a crumpled pile of flesh and pale bone on the rug that covered the ground. Firouz dried him as roughly as he'd washed the boy, his hands lingering in places the boy wished they wouldn't for far too long.

Once he was dry, he was offered a tattered— but clean— robe. "Put this on and go in there," Firouz told him, gesturing to the next room. There were large, plush cushions to sit on and beautiful blankets to curl up under. For one brief moment, the idea of being _warm_ crossed the boy's mind. He'd never in his life been _warm_ , aside from in that bath. He didn't much care for warm water, he decided, but he was interested in the idea of being warm.

When he didn't immediately take the robe from Firouz, the man grunted angrily and thrust it against the boy's chest. The boy was wary of the gift, but with shaking hands he did as he was told. The rope was still around his neck, and Firouz still held the end of it, even if he wasn't paying direct attention to it. Each breath already caused him a great amount of pain, his sinuses raw and angry after being doused in perfumed oils. He didn't want the ache in his lungs to return.

So he did as he was told, wrapping his skeletal body in the robe and tying it clumsily at his left hip before stumbling over to the pile of cushions. He lowered himself into the pile and found himself being swallowed up almost immediately. The more he struggled to stay upright, the further he sank into the pile. After the way he'd fought in the bath, he didn't have the strength necessary to keep fighting. He let himself sink into the cushions and tried to enjoy the abundance of soft fabric against his skin.

He found that it was actually rather relaxing, a sensation he had never experienced. Relaxation, to him, was something of a mythical creature. Comfort was something afforded only to people who weren't hideously disfigured, and he was _hideously_ disfigured. Firouz and the other men who worked at the freak show told him so at every opportunity they were given.

 _So why are they being so kind and giving me new clothes now?_ He couldn't help but be wary.

He was right to be wary.

He had almost fallen asleep in the pile of cushion when Firouz came into the room and joined him in the pile. All at once the boy was alert and aware of everything happening around him. Before Firouz had joined him in the cushion pile, he'd doused the oil lamps that cast dim light across the tent, leaving only a few nearly-dead candles in the corners of the room. The boy knew nothing good could possibly happen now. He felt Firouz groping through the blankets and cushions, his smooth fingers grazing the pitted, infected skin of the boy's forehead more than a few times before finally gripping the rope that still hung round the boy's neck and pulling him up.

"Are you falling asleep already?" Firouz asked the question more like he was stating a fact. He wasn't surprised, he'd expected it. The boy was too tired, too warm, too sore to fight back now. Whatever he wanted, any sick fantasy, Firouz needed only to pull on the rope and the boy would do as he was told.

The boy realized this, horrified, as Firouz reached under his robe. The man's hands were so soft against the boy's skin, but the way he touched the boy would leave bruises and scars that would never heal.

The boy cried and struggled as Firouz continued to casually strangle him as his hands wandered. As Firouz worked to undo the belt that held the boy's robe together, the boy finally managed to free one of his legs from the cushions. He kicked straight back, hitting Firouz in the thigh first before his right heel met its mark. As Firouz cried out in pain and grabbed himself, the boy tore himself away and scrambled out of the tent. He gathered the rope that was around his neck and wrapped it around his waist so he wouldn't trip over it. His hands were shaking and clumsy, too clumsy to get the rope over his head and off his neck.

He stumbled and crawled through the camp, following random paths through the mud in a vain attempt to escape. Was he even truly trying to escape? He couldn't be sure. He wanted so badly to go back to his mother, even if she'd never come back for him, even if she'd never shown him the slightest amount of kindness or love… But he knew he had no chance of finding her now. She was so far away, back in England, across the water.

Where could he go? He didn't know. He didn't know if there was a town nearby, he didn't know if anyone would take pity on him, though he sincerely doubted it.

He made it to the edge of the camp before he heard the heavy pounding of footsteps chasing him. He glanced back as he broke into a run and found that hew as being chased by at least four of the men who ran the freak show, including Firouz. There was a crazed look to Firouz's eyes that frightened the boy far more than anything he'd encountered.

He kept running, pushing himself to keep going as his legs and lungs screamed at him to stop.

It was only when he tripped over a large rock protruding from the mud that he was caught and dragged, kicking and screaming, back to Firouz's tent.

Furious and fuming, Firouz stripped the boy and threw him on the floor beside the barrel he'd been washed in just a few hours previous.

"You are a vicious, ugly little shit," Firouz spat as he kicked the boy in the ribs. The boy cried out and hugged himself in a vain attempt to dull the pain as Firouz kicked him again. "I take you in, I feed you, I clothe you, and _this_ is how you repay me? You belong to me! Every part of you belongs to me, and don't you dare forget it! You are disposable, boy. Your life means _nothing._ Your grave will be shallow and unmarked if you continue to test me.

"I take you in tonight and I clean you, I give you a fine place to sleep and you repay me by hurting me? This is not right, boy. This is not the way things are supposed to work around here." Another kick to the ribs, this time accompanied by a sharp pain under the boy's diaphragm and a loud crack. The boy howled in pain and Firouz grinned in triumph. He kicked the boy twice more for good measure before dragging him by the arm back to the barrel that was still filled with bathwater. Of course, it had been several hours since the boy had taken his bath and the water had now gone quite cold.

Firouz dumped the boy unceremoniously in the cold water and held him down, threatening to submerge the boy's head. For a brief moment, the boy was certain that Firouz would drown him, but after all that had happened that night he found he was far too weak to fight.

Firouz cleaned the boy once more and all but threw the boy to the ground beside the pile of cushions. With only a thin rug to cushion the boy's fall, the pain that seeped through his bones was terrible. As he was adjusting to that pain, the rope around his neck was pulled taught, snapping his head back. Firouz knelt beside him, his breath hot on the boy's ear.

"Tonight you will learn what I do to my possessions that decide to put up a fight," he hissed. The boy shivered as the man's hands began to wander his body once more, unable to put up a proper fight.


	5. Chapter Five

_**BONUS CHAPTER AN: Hey guys! It's a holiday so here's a bonus chapter just for you! I will warn you this one continues to have icky themes, if last chapter made you squirm this one probably will, too.**_

 ** _Also, though Erik/Hesham is referred to a "the boy" in this chapter (as this is before when Saeed gave him a name) this shortly after what would be his 20th birthday._**

 ** _Enjoy!_**

Chapter Five

1862, Persia

With tired eyes he scanned the courtyard for any sign of movement. It was only a matter of time before the doomed prisoner would show himself and the boy knew it. _Let him hide,_ he thought as his eyes darted back and forth across the yard. _I can wait. He'll be in danger of dehydration far before I will._

He climbed up onto the backs of one of the great statues near the center of the courtyard so he could have a good view in all directions and he got comfortable. If and when the prisoner decided to move, the boy would be have plenty of time to strike. He was incredibly swift and light on his feet. It was part of what made him so deadly.

"Come on out," the boy called, laughing. "It's rather cowardly to hide amongst the shrubbery like a rat."

The prisoner, of course, didn't respond. The boy continued to laugh, throwing his voice at random to further unnerve the prisoner. He so enjoyed it when the Shah allowed him to play with his prey. It was rare that he was allowed to set this prisoner he was to execute loose in the tower or one of the courtyards. Rarer still that he was allowed to do so at night.

In the darkness the prisoners always seemed to think they were invisible. That seemed to be their downfall every single time.

The stone statue on which he perched was strangely warm to the touch, far warmer than the cool evening air. He knew it had to have something to do with the amount of sunlight it was exposed to all day, but by midnight he thought it would be completely cool to the touch.

He heard some leaves rustle and turned his head to look for the source of the noise. He saw a dark figure huddled behind a thin bush. _Too easy_ , he thought. _You couldn't even give me a proper challenge?_

The boy remained where he sat for a long while after he spotted the prisoner, watching as the prisoner watched him. He kept his face neutral and gave no indication that he'd spotted the man just yet. As far a the prisoner knew, the boy was still scanning the courtyard for any sign of him.

By the time the man realized he'd been spotted, it would be far too late. The boy gripped the knife hidden in his belt, preparing to strike. The prisoner was beginning to panic. It wouldn't be long before he would move. Perhaps he'd try to make a run for it. The boy knew that could be fun.

He also knew that the Shah would be angry if he allowed such a thing.

Sighing, he leapt down from his perch and ran to where the prisoner hid. With one swift motion, he stabbed the prisoner through the neck and walked away, letting the man bleed to death in the sand. In the morning, the guards would find him.

The boy took his leave then, having fulfilled his final task for the evening. For once he found himself incredibly tired as he mad his way up to his plush quarters. It was rare that he actually slept, rarer still that he found himself to be any degree of tired. He had never understood his body's ability to go for weeks, sometimes even months, without sleep.

That night, however, he felt positively drained.

It was all he could do to drag himself up to his bed. He fell into the bed fully clothed and was asleep before he could even manage to kick off his sandals. It would be one of the deepest sleeps of his life and it would spawn many confusing dreams.

In each dream there was a girl with long blond hair and the voice of an angel. He was certain that she _was_ an angel, in fact. She _had_ to be. There was no other explanation for why she was so willing to spend time near him, even in his dreams. He was a fearsome beast, even when his subconscious mind could play out whatever situations it desired. But this blond girl was willing to be near him and treat him like a human being, something many people he'd encountered were entirely unwilling to even attempt.

For once he found himself lamenting having woken too soon when finally he opened his eyes around midday. How he wanted those dreams to be real. He would've given just about anything for those dreams to be real!

He tried to fall back asleep, but it was no use. The longer he lay in bed, the more uncomfortable he became. With a sigh, sat up and looked around his room to verify that nobody had been in to disturb him in his slumber. He noticed a folded piece of parchment peeking out from under the door and he raised an eyebrow. It wasn't often that he was summoned two days in a row.

He cleaned himself and put on a fresh robe. Rather than bother with a mask, as the day was already warmer than usual, he tied a silk scarf over his head to protect his scalp from the sun and hide his face from the world. The loose fabric would be cooler than a thick leather mask.

He slipped his sandals on and secured his knife and his length of catgut to his belt before heading hastily to the Shah's harem, where he'd been summoned. He found the location strange, but no stranger than most of the requests the Shah made of him. _Why force your concubines to look upon my horrible visage? They don't deserve that,_ he thought as he approached the thick, ornate doors that led to the large room that housed the Shah's harem during the day. He took a deep breath before knocking.

"Come," called the Shah. The boy did as he was told and pushed open the door.

The girls let out a collective gasp as he stepped inside and removed his head covering as the Shah required. When he finally looked up to meet the Shah's eyes, he found the Shah propped up in a pile of cushions, one naked woman in his lap and another sitting at his side, feeding him berries. He seemed oblivious to the women as he looked back at the boy.

"You put on quite a show last night," he said, a grin slowly spreading across his face. "I was watching the entire thing. It was a bit too dark for me to see much, but I saw the blood. That's all I needed to see. You've put on quite a show each and every time that I have decided to watch you work. For entertaining me so, I wish to offer you a concubine."

The surprise and horror must have been apparent on the boy's face, for the Shah's grin only grew wider. "You didn't think I would allow you to grow too old without experiencing the touch of a woman, Assassin? Surely you think me a good and just ruler."

"Sire, I cannot accept—"

"I shall not take no for an answer. If you will not choose one, one shall be chosen for you," said the Shah. The boy glanced around nervously. There were at least forty women there, all staring at him with varying degrees of disgust plain to see on their face. There was no way he could choose one of them to be forced to spend the night with him. How could he? He'd never done more than think about sharing the bed of a woman, and even when he _thought_ about it he was reminded of the time spent with Firouz.

"Please, Highness," he begged. He didn't want to show the fear he felt, he knew it would be dumb to show any sort of weakness, but he couldn't do it. "While it is a kind offer that proves you are a most benevolent man, surely, I must decline. I am not the kind of man to bed a woman to whom he is not wed."

 _Oh please,_ he thought, _please let that be enough of an excuse. Please._

The Shah looked thoughtful for a moment, but when the naked woman slipped quietly off his lap the boy realized it was likely for a different reason than he was hoping. After a moment the Shah's voice hardened and he shook his head.

"What is your problem, Assassin? Are my girls not worthy of you? Surely one you must find one of them appealing."

"It's not that," the boy said, shaking his head earnestly. Oh how he longed for the willing touch of _any_ of the women in that room, but if he chose one of the women now he knew that anything they did would be against their will. Something about that didn't sit right with him.

"Come now, Assassin. I am growing weary of your indecision. Walk through my garden and view all of my lovely flowers. Surely you will find one to your liking. If you still cannot decide then, I _will_ choose for you."

The boy swallowed hard and nodded.

Though the girls clearly knew they were to make themselves available, many of them tried to disappear into themselves as he approached. Most didn't even try to hide their disgust. The boy tried to hide his discomfort as he walked through the room.

There were two girls out of the entire room that _didn't_ look upon him as though he was a diseased rat, but neither of them seemed comfortable being any nearer to him than across the room.

When he was once again before the Shah, he sighed and looked at the floor.

"I suppose," he said after a few moments of thought, "The young girl with the red hair near the back of the room."

The Shah turned to look and immediately set his eyes upon the girl he was talking about. He smiled.

"See?" he said, beckoning the girl forward. Though she kept her face neutral, the terror was clear in her eyes. "I knew you would find one to your liking. This is Parvaneh, and she is my gift to you."

She stepped forward and bowed low, her orange-red curls cascading over her shoulders.

"I shall have a space cleared near your quarters for your concubine," the Shah continued after a few moments. "Now, I suggest you go and become better acquainted with her."

The boy sighed and nodded. Before turning his attention back to Parvaneh, he draped his scarf carefully over his head once more. When he met her eye again he found that she looked far more comfortable with his face covered. He sighed again and offered her his hand. To his surprise, she took it willingly.

They returned to his quarters in silence, awkwardly avoiding each other's gaze as they stole quick glances at one another.

 _A concubine_ , he thought. _A concubine that is all mine. What sort of sick joke is this?_

As he opened the door, he paused a moment, considering what was supposed to happen once they were both inside. It both excited and repulsed him in equal parts. So many times he had fantasized, so many times he had laughed and told himself it wouldn't happen. And yet here he was, a pretty girl standing beside him who had to do whatever he—

 _No_ , he thought, shaking his head. _She doesn't have to do anything with me. She shouldn't be here. This isn't right._

Parvaneh squeezed his hand, bringing him back to the moment. He glanced over at her and could see the utter terror in her eyes still, but beyond that he could see a strange resilience, a fighting spirit that he could almost identify with. She was far stronger than she was letting on.

He pushed open the door and gestured for her to go in first. She hesitated, but stepped into the darkened bedchamber. He followed once she was a few good steps inside, closing the door behind him. She jumped and turned to face him as the door latched behind them, and for a moment neither of them moved, neither of them even breathed.

"Are you going to remove your mask again?" Parvaneh asked after a long silence passed between them. The boy swallowed and shook his head.

"I don't have to," he said. "If it would make you more comfortable, I will leave it on."

"Were you burned?"

The boy frowned. "I was born this way," he said. She looked horrified at the very idea. Much of the terror that had been in her eyes was replaced with pity, and that sparked an anger deep inside that the boy could not quite explain. He balled his hands into fists at his sides and worked to control his breathing.

"Shall I undress?" she asked after another long silence had passed between them. The boy went pale.

"I, um—" He didn't know what to say. Certainly he longed to be closer to her and found her quite desirable, but he couldn't reconcile the way she had come to him with the desires that dwelt in his heart.

It was then that she approached him. Every muscle in his body tensed as she reached out with trembling hands and touched him. Her touch was gentle and obviously meant to be soothing and perhaps even a bit teasing, but it just made him more and more on edge with every gentle stroke of her fingers against the loose fabric that covered his chest.

She inched closer and closer to him until their bodies were just a breath apart, caressing his chest and stomach all the while. It was all she could really reach, after all. He backed up until he was against the door, hoping she would relent, but she followed his every move. When finally her body pressed against his, he felt a though he was engulfed in flames.

His breath became ragged and his heart pounded angrily in his chest as she looked up at him with a strange sort of hunger in her eyes.

 _It's all an act,_ he reminded himself as his body reacted to her touch. _She doesn't want any part of this._

"Stop _,"_ he said in what little voice he could muster. The word registered at barely above a whisper. She clearly didn't hear it, or if she did she wasn't willing to listen. She parted his robe, revealing the pale yellow-gray skin that stretched across his ribcage. He could feel her hesitate as she inspected that skin and its strange color.

When she pressed her soft lips and the tip of her nose against his skin, he yelped as though he'd been burned. How he wanted to do what he'd fantasized about. He burned for her. Her touch was such a delicious pain.

He stooped down, scanning her face as he did, and tentatively pressed his lips against hers.

Just like that, she pulled away from him, leaving his body ice cold where she'd set it ablaze. She turned away from him and had her hands up to her mouth.

"Treacherous vixen," he spat. "You would pretend to want me until I attempt to make a move. You're no better than the others."

Parvaneh said nothing, he shoulders shuddering as though she were crying. The boy snarled and stalked over to her. He took her by the shoulder and forced her to turn around. When their eyes met, he could see nothing but fear in her eyes once more. _I was right_ , he thought with a sad sigh. _It was an act. She didn't expect me to reciprocate._

The thought angered him more than he expected it to. She tried to pull away, but his grip on her shoulder remained firm.

"Please," she begged. "You are hurting me."

"You misled me, tell me what the difference is," he replied coldly. She struggled harder as he all but dragged her across the room to the bed.

"I thought you asked me to stop," she said as he shoved her toward the bed.

"You didn't stop," he growled. "Now you're not going to stop."

"Please, Assassin," she pleaded. She looked so small. "Don't do what you're about to do. Please!"


	6. Chapter Six

_**AN: Hello guys! It seems that last chapter struck a nerve. In the first day of it being up, 3/4 of those who read it sent me angry PMs demanding to know why I was "mischaracterizing" Erik so. This is the only reply you're getting for that- my Erik was severely abused all through his adolescence. He doesn't have people skills, he doesn't know what to do with his emotions, especially not when they're tied to a physical reaction.**_

 _ **Also, last chapter, Erik would've been roughly 20. I answered that in last chapter's AN, but apparently people didn't read the AN.**_

 _ **This chapter he would be roughly 28 or 29.**_

 _ **Also, yes! This IS being put out on Sunday this week! And a supposed week early, to boot! But that's because we're hitting that point where I'm writing fast enough to put out a chapter a week. So look forward to a chapter on Sundays**_ or _ **Mondays every week from now on.**_

 _ **OK enough rambling from me. Enjoy Chapter Six!**_

 _ **AN EDIT: Hahahaha okay so I'm kind of terrible and apparently I should learn to do better research. OK so I'm not**_ **terrible _but I definitely need to not take just the first couple search results at their word._** _ **Thank you kindly to E.M.K.81 for pointing out a date error. Below is the lightly edited version of the chapter, reworked so it still takes place prior to chapter 19 of Forgotten Melodies.**_

Chapter Six

1875, Paris

The masked man was surprisingly well dressed for what he was doing. He stood on a street corner, surveying the crowd that surrounded him. He was looking for a specific person. Though he'd vowed to not kill anyone ever again, once Saeed had gone he found the only steady work he could get involved killing or at least maiming for hire, even with the temporary patron he'd found in Professor Valerius in the between time.

In the years since Saeed and Hesham had parted ways, the masked man had hopped back and forth between England and France, never staying in one spot for long. He couldn't afford to let himself get comfortable, even if he now had a comfortable home in Perros-Guirec. If he got comfortable, he'd get sloppy. If he got sloppy, he'd get caught.

He'd been standing on that street corner for longer than an hour when he finally spotted the man he'd been contracted to kill. Four-hundred francs weighed heavy in his breast pocket, and four-hundred more waited for him at the end of the job. That would more than pay his way at his current boarding house and safe passage into Belgium later in the month, and he still had two more pending jobs that he was still considering.

He dispatched of his target swiftly and was far from the scene before anyone else realized that the man who had collapsed in the middle of the road was, in fact, dead. He didn't stop running until he was in the shadow of the new opera house. Over the years he'd helped out in building it, casually carving a space of his own into its bowels, just in case. He hadn't been back since its completion.

He found himself doing many things just in case. Just in case seemed to be his current state of life. He was a scavenger picking up the crumbs at the foot of the rich and even the not-so-rich that walked through their lives all around him. Despite his size and oftentimes strange attire he found that the general public seemed to completely ignore him. Unless, of course, he was doing something particularly strange or menacing. He'd made the mistake of following an unaccompanied young lady down the street in London one day and nearly been taken in by the constabulary.

He heard wailing in the street where he'd carried out the job he'd been given and he took that as his cue to take cover.

 _No time like the present to test out my future home,_ he thought. He had no immediate plans of settling down there just yet. He wasn't sure if he ever actually would. But he knew that it would serve his current need and that was good enough.

As he slipped inside, anyone who _did_ notice him would not have thought him out of the ordinary; his tuxedo and stiff-brimmed hat seemed perfectly appropriate attire for a night at the opera.

Of course, the fact that there was not a performance scheduled for that evening might've tipped the keen observer off that he was not, in fact, meant to be there. In any case, he managed to slip inside without incident, making it to the second cellar before being noticed at all.

As he passed a haphazard stack of backdrops for upcoming productions, he managed to knock a bucket of paint off of a low stool. The bucket made a terrible amount of noise as it bounced across the cellar before finally coming to a stop at the top of the stairs down to the third cellar.

"Who's there?" a gruff voice called. A heavyset man with a patchy beard and receding hairline stumbled into Hesham's view as he ducked behind the stack of backdrops. "I know there's someone there. Show yourself!"

"Joseph Buquet, 'ave you been drinking on the job again?" another man called. Hesham couldn't quite place the second man's accent, but he knew it wasn't the French that had become so familiar to him over the months he'd traveled the country. It intrigued him as much as Buquet's proximity concerned him. Before the man called Joseph Buquet took even one more step toward Hesham's hiding spot, Hesham had the knife he'd just killed a man in the street with drawn and ready to use once more. There was blood still drying on the blade and blood soaking into the battered leather sheath that hung from his belt.

"Rats," Joseph Buquet said after a moment of staring into the near-total darkness of the cellar. He held a lantern, but its light was no match for the darkness there. "Building's only a few years old and already we've got rats."

Hesham remained in his hiding spot for a long while after Joseph Buquet left the area, unsure whether the stagehand would be back. When he hadn't heard anyone come into the second cellar for a good long while before he finally scurried across the floor and down into the third cellar, where he only had to cross the lake before he would be on his own doorstep.

The darkness swallowed him whole as he approached the lake, but Hesham paid it no mind. He could see almost as well now as he could were the chamber completely lit up. He found the tiny boat he'd stashed near the edge of the lake quickly and managed to get it in the water noiselessly. He was halfway across the lake before he heard another noise, and what he heard nearly made him fall out of the boat.

"There _is_ someone there _,_ " Joseph Buquet said. Along with his voice came the flickering yellow light of the stagehand's lantern.

He glanced down at the murky water of the lake, and for a terrifying moment he found himself looking at that barrel in that tent with Firouz. He shook his head and took a deep breath. He slipped under the water and disappeared into the shadows before the stagehand could react. While he fought to keep his nose-hole covered and push back the onslaught of awful childhood memories he listened to the confusion on the surface.

He continued as far into the shadows as his lungs and the terrifying burning sensation in his sinuses would allow before clawing his way to the surface. His only focus once his head was above water was on finding the shore he'd been aiming for and getting inside his eventual home. The sooner he hid himself, the better.

Pulling himself out of the lake on the far shore proved to be far more difficult than he'd anticipated. It took him four attempts before he finally managed to pull himself up, and then he nearly slipped back down into the lake. He hoped that would add to the security of his home there. The lake was fairly shallow, but the sides were incredibly slick. It could easily prove to be a deathtrap. The very thought brought a smile to his face as he hurried across the wide space between the lake and his front door.

The first thing he noticed upon entering the house built into the cellar was the temperature drop. It was easily fifteen degrees cooler inside the house than it had been in the chamber with the lake. The air was stale and tasted like mold and freshly cut grass.

The first thing he did once the door was closed and bolted behind him was to light the gas lamps in the main room. This was the only room he'd properly furnished yet and was probably also the only room he would find himself using during his brief stay there.

He thought of the bag of personal items he'd left at the boarding house and wondered if he could trust the couple running the house not to steal from him in his absence. In the end he decided it did not matter. He did not have much, only a few robes from his time in Persia and a few spare francs. A spare mask or two, perhaps, though he tended to keep as many of those on his person as possible, just in case.

As he tried to force as much water as possible out of his nasal cavity, he considered the idea that he didn't particularly have any need to return to the boarding house at all. It would be just over a hundred extra francs in his pocket, after all, and he wasn't certain it was a good idea to try to leave the cellar of the opera house any time soon.

 _Let Joseph Buquet tell his stories,_ he thought. _They will all take him for a fool and my presence will soon be forgotten._

He looked around at the half-finished room. The doors to the other rooms all hung open, giving the place an eery dead feeling. _If I'm ever to live here, I will have to chase the strange presence of death from these chambers,_ he thought as he walked through the home, relearning its layout. He'd built it nearly in secret as the final touches of the opera house were being built, directly on top of a continuation of the drainage sewer that connected to the lake.

There was so much potential in that space, but Hesham couldn't see the forest for the trees. As he looked around this space that he was dead certain none of the opera staff nor the owners had any idea existed all he could think about was the work that still needed to go into the space to make it properly livable. And as he thought about all the work that would need to go into that space, the thought crept into his mind of how many men he would have to kill to raise the funds for all he would need to do.

He didn't want to think about the body count that would continue to fund his life. How he yearned for gainful employment, something he could do and be proud of; something where he could be judged for more than just the hideousness of his face. Of course, he knew no such employment existed for him. The second someone caught sight of his horrific visage they would call together a mob and run him out of town. Or worse, they'd call together a mob and sell him back to the freak show.

Though he'd grown far taller than anyone had ever expected and was swift, silent, and deadly in ways that most men couldn't even begin to imitate, he still feared being captured and put on display for the jeering crowds once more. Worse, he found that he still feared Firouz though the man had been dead for more than a decade.

He removed his mask to allow his face to dry properly, shivering as the cool air hit his bare skin. He knew he should strip to his skivvies and allow his clothing to dry away from his body so he wouldn't catch his death from the cold, but one thing his single furnished room lacked was any variety of blanket. There were a couple of decorative throw pillows on the lounge, but they were nowhere near large enough to be effective at keeping him warm.

He shivered as he crossed the room to the lounge and sat. Were he more willing to press his luck that night, he could've worked on his pipe organ. It was the strangest thing he'd found himself wanting in his potential home. He'd always been fascinated by music, but he'd never had any sort of talent for it. Why did he think having a pipe organ in his sitting room would be a good idea?

It still needed a lot of work before it would be even remotely playable, and even then it would still need to be tuned.

The idea of trying to lead an organ tuner down to the third cellar of the opera house to make sure his instrument was tuned properly brought a smile to Hesham's face. There was just no way he could frame the idea so it would sound logical to anyone who wasn't a fugitive assassin with a face not even a mother could love.

He sighed and leaned back, upholstery be damned. He hadn't been so sure about that particular lounge when he'd made the purchase in the first place. If it stained he would simply move it into a room where he wouldn't have to see it very often. He closed his eyes for what felt like just a minute, but when he opened them he was sprawled across the lounge with his head buried under a throw pillow.

As he sat up he found himself quite disoriented. It would definitely take some getting used to, living underground. He didn't like the idea of not being able to tell when it was daytime or when it was night. There was no clock in the room yet, either. Nothing to tell him how long he'd been sleeping.

His body protested as he pushed himself to his feet. He was sore and colder than normal, but his clothing seemed to finally have dried. _I've been lying there for a few hours then,_ he decided. His stomach growled as he crossed the room toward the door. He groaned. _I don't have any food down here!_ The thought was a woeful lament that repeated over and over in his mind as he tried to think of a solution. He knew there was a kitchen of some variety in the opera house, it had been near the part he'd helped finish building. But he had no idea how well stocked it was nor how high traffic an area it was in. He could not risk being seen again, but he also couldn't stand to be so hungry as he found himself then.

And it had been quite long since his last meal. He'd last eaten at lunchtime on the day before he'd waited most of the day for his target to cross a particular stretch of the road. If he ate the morning before he had a job to carry out he'd often find himself feeling quite ill by the time the job was over and done. Now he felt as though his stomach was trying to digest its way through his ribcage.

He'd have to risk it, he decided. There was no clear alternative. If he was careful, he could avoid being seen. He'd traveled through the opera house before without being spotted. The incident in the cellars with Joseph Buquet was a statistical outlier.

And he was just so very, very hungry.

There were at least two tunnels that also led to the surface from his home on the lake, but he decided once more to try his luck on the lake. With a little bit of creative maneuvering he managed to pull the boat close enough to board _and_ not fall back into the lake in the process. It had floated quite close to that shore on its own after he'd abandoned it.

As he crossed the lake once more, he listened very carefully for any signs that he was not alone. The air below the opera house was still and silent, broken only by the quiet rushing of water over his oars.

Still, once he was safely out on the other side, he hid the boat so nobody might be tempted to try to locate his secret place. As far as he was aware, nobody officially knew about the little home on the lake. He intended to keep it that way.

As he ascended into the portion of the opera house that was above ground he soon discovered that he was alone. He wasn't sure he'd ever been quite so relieved. After falling asleep so awkwardly and in wet clothing he found that his muscles were quite sore. The less he had to skulk and lurk, the better.

It didn't take him long to reach the kitchen, but by that point he could hear signs that he _wasn't_ alone any longer. It made sense, of course. He was quite close to the dormitory for the ballet dancers and students of the conservatory. Still he found himself a bit shocked at the idea of anybody else being awake and moving about at such an hour.

He searched the cupboards and drawers in the kitchen quite quickly, loading his pockets up with bits of day old bread, a few pieces of fruit, and even a nice hunk of strong cheese left sitting out on a cutting board. Were there people about that might stumble upon him he didn't want to be caught looting the kitchen.

He was far less concerned with being quiet on his way back down to the depths below the opera house, only moving properly stealthily until he was certain he'd put a bit of distance between himself and the ballet rats who continued to stir.

It was only once he was safely across the lake and across the threshold of his little home that he finally took the time to properly inspect what he'd grabbed. His pockets were of rather large size; they had to be if he was going to fit even half of his hands inside.

He lined up his food on the rug in front of his dismantled pipe organ and found that he'd probably taken enough that it would be noticed. For the briefest of moments, he considered bringing some of it back up to where he'd found it, but that moment passed thankfully quite quickly.

 _No_ , he scolded himself, _if I return the food I will only be making it more likely that I will be seen. They will likely blame the food disappearing on the ballet rats._

What he'd stolen would last him many days if none of it spoiled before he managed to eat it.

He decided to eat the cheese with a little of the bread first, as those two would likely sit heaviest in his stomach. And he wanted for nothing more than for his stomach to cease it's painful growling.

He ate slowly, savoring the tang of the cheese and the smooth crunch of the bread's crust. His thoughts wandered back to the boarding house and the family he'd been staying with. Had he returned he likely would've dined on a fine meal of meat and wine.

He sighed as he thought of that family and their boarding house. Sure, he'd been due to venture back to Perros within the next day or so anyway, and sure he'd already paid for part of his stay, but as he sat there he began to feel a bit… guilty. He didn't like feeling guilty, he found.

Though the family that ran the boarding house was not a rich one, they went out of their way to make their guests comfortable, even the masked fellow who spoke so rarely they were almost certain he was mute.

 _My mask_ , he thought, suddenly horrified. His hands flew to his face and he let out a terrified yelp as his fingers touched skin rather than the stiff leather of his mask. _I could've been seen without it!_

He scrambled over to where his mask lay and with trembling fingers placed it back on his face where it belonged. The second the cool material was once again touching his face he felt calm.


	7. Chapter Seven

_**AN: And now, to end part one... a cliffhanger! Ack!**_

Chapter Seven

1877, Paris

 _Another day, another catwalk_ , Hesham thought as he walked out onto one of the rickety constructs that hung high above the stage. The current production would open within the week, and though Hesham still found that it was of little interest of him, he returned to those catwalks above the stage day after day to watch rehearsals.

In truth, he was only watching for one particular dancer, but even on the days when Christine failed to show up he found himself staying and watching the rehearsals anyway.

On that particular day he was relieved to find Christine and Fautimeh giggling and wrapping themselves in the thick velvet curtains. For three days he had listened to the lead soprano, a woman named Carlotta, throw tantrum after tantrum over everything and anything. For three days he'd also watched the managers tripping over themselves to appease her. It made his stomach turn to watch them fighting and fawning over her, especially when finally he heard her sing.

 _This is your diva?_ He'd heard nails scratching against stone that sounded better than she. _This opera will fail and fail again with someone caterwauling that way on stage._

He watched as Fautimeh and Christine played and laughed together, ignoring as others filed onstage and began their warmups.

He only finally turned away from them as he heard Carlotta warming up her voice. With a cringe he turned to look for her. It was quite a tragedy that she sounded so bad. She was technically perfect. Every movement, every breath she took was positively _perfect_ , but there was no soul to her voice. She didn't put any part of her into her craft and it showed in spades.

He turned his attention back to Christine and Fautimeh, who now appeared to be mocking the diva's warmup routine. A sly grin spread across his face as he watched them. _Clever girls,_ he thought. _They know what sounds good and what doesn't._

"You!" The word rang through the auditorium with more passion and emotion than Carlotta had shown in three days of rehearsals. Hesham turned his attention back to the diva as she stalked across the stage toward Fautimeh and Christine. He followed her, ready to spring into action if she did anything. What he would spring into action to do, he didn't know. But he didn't like the way she was angrily pointing at them and shouting in a language he didn't quite understand.

"You make the fun of me, well _go on_ and have the laugh!" Carlotta hollered once she was closer to the girls. She stopped roughly two meters from where the girls stood, no longer laughing as they watched her every move. "I will see that you are out on your asses by nightfall! Make the fun of Carlotta. Everybody make the fun of Carlotta!" She turned to gesture to the rest of the people on stage, who were now gathering around and gawking at her latest tantrum.

She inched closer to the girls. "Oh, you think this is the funny? Yes laugh at pobre Carlotta! Everyone have the good laugh at Carlotta!"

Every muscle in Hesham's body tensed as she drew ever closer to the girls before finally reaching out and shoving Christine. As she lost her balance and fell backward, Hesham lost control of himself. He looked around the catwalk for something he could lob at Carlotta in retaliation, but the only thing he found was a sandbag secured to the railing.

As Carlotta stalked toward the now rapidly backing up Fautimeh, Hesham realized that she would be walking directly below the sandbag. He unsheathed the long, sharp knife that hung at his belt and began sawing away at the rope, holding the sandbag steady in case the rope snapped prematurely.

As Carlotta approached the spot the sandbag would hit, Hesham felt the weight change on the catwalk. He looked over to find Joseph Buquet walking toward him, seemingly oblivious to his presence as he took stock of what was attached to where. The shock of the man being there so suddenly caused Hesham to drop the sandbag prematurely.

A terrible scream rang out from the stage below, and as Buquet turned his attention to the commotion below, Hesham climbed down to a lower catwalk and disappeared into the shadows backstage.

It wasn't until he was safely hidden in the shadows that he looked to see if he'd hit his mark.

He hadn't.

There, howling in pain in a crumpled heap on the stage, lay Fautimeh. From the unnatural angle at which her leg was bent it was clear to Hesham that he'd not only missed his mark but gravely injured his former friend's daughter.

He turned and hurried back down to the cellar where he would hide and wait. There was a good chance nobody had seen him, but that didn't matter. He expected to see the Daroga again before nightfall.

He had barely had time to remove his cloak and hat before there was a knock at the door. He ignored it, opting instead to start heating some water for tea. As he worked in his little kitchen, the knocking grew louder and more persistent.

When he returned to the sitting room the knocking had grown deafening, as though the man on the other side was kicking the door with every ounce of his strength.

"Hesham!" the Daroga's voice was a pained howl. "Hesham open this door this instant!"

"Leave me be," Hesham replied. "I've told you to leave me be."

"You must answer for your crimes!"

"Come back with the police then."

" _Hesham!_ "

The masked man sighed as he unlocked the door. He'd hardly stepped out of the way when the door swung open and the old Persian came barreling into the room.

"You've gone too far this time, Hesham!"

"I was not aiming for Fautimeh, I can assure you," Hesham said, sounding rather bored. His tone only served to rile the Daroga up further. "I was aiming to protect her."

"Sure you were," Saeed snarled. "Don't think I have forgotten the words you spoke to me the last time I was here, Hesham."

"If you think I would purposely hurt Fautimeh then you clearly _have_ forgotten what I said. I said I'd make her an orphan, not that I'd end _her_ life."

"Hesham—"

"If it will make you feel better, Daroga," the masked man spat the title as though it was poison on his tongue, "take out your anger on me. If truly you think you will are my match…" He spread his arms, leaving his stomach and chest open to attack. For a long moment it was clear that the old Persian was considering it. With a sigh, the older man's shoulders slumped and he collapsed into Hesham's favorite armchair.

"Why must you remain here, Hesham?" He asked the question more like he was stating a fact. "I'm so very tired, so very tired of waking in the middle of the night, expecting the worst to have happened to Fautimeh or Christine."

"You can't possibly think that I would harm them," Hesham said, incredulous. The very thought that someone would think him capable of harming even a single hair on either of their heads on purpose made him quite angry. "Saeed, I traveled with you and your daughter! You saw how gentle I was with her—"

"I also saw what you did to your mother," the old Persian replied coldly. Hesham growled.

"If you are going to accuse me of that _again_ …" He couldn't even finish the thought as he fought to keep himself from strangling the other man right then and there.

"By all rights I _should_ turn you into the Paris police," said the Daroga after a long silence. Hesham watched his face intently. "But I don't think I shall."

He stood then and walked toward the door, leaving Hesham to gawk at him in shock.

"No, I think it will be far worse punishment for you to know you've gravely injured my daughter, the one person left in this life who had any hope for the goodness within you. She will never think kindly of you again, Hesham."

With that, he was gone, the door slammed shut behind him, and Hesham found himself alone with his thoughts once more.


	8. Part Two: Daroga (Chapter Eight)

Part Two:

Daroga

Chapter Eight

1856, Persia

It was the middle of the night when a young Saeed Rahimi woke with a start to the sound of someone pounding on his front door. As the chief of the Shah's police, the Daroga, he was quite used to being woken in the middle of the night to take care of a problem, but there was something different about how he was being summoned this time. There was something desperate, perhaps even panicked about the way they were pounding on his door.

"What's going on?" his wife asked, sleepily lifting her head as her husband got out of bed.

"Nothing for you to concern yourself with, darling Wife," he replied, leaning back over to kiss her forehead. "Simply a summons from the Shah. I am sure I will be back before morning. Go back to sleep, habibti."

As he tied his belt to secure his sleep clothes and make himself look fairly presentable, he padded across the small home he shared with his wife and children to answer the door. The knocking was a strange, desperate sort unlike any that his officers usually gave. As he approached the door, he called out, "by Allah, I am coming friend."

No sooner had he opened the door did his brother, drenched in blood, stumble in. "Brother!" he cried, taking Saeed by the shoulders. "Brother, you must hide me! The Shah, he wants my head!"

"What have you done? Brother—"

"The Shah's wife, Saeed. I was called to deliver the baby, oh _Saeed_ there was so much blood! I did everything I could, I tried so hard but neither baby nor mother survived. He blames me! Saeed, he will have my head!"

"Gul, fear not. I am certain the Shah will come to his senses. After all, who would he have carry out such a sentence? I am his Daroga and my men will not carry out such an order if I show that I am against it," Saeed said calmly. It did nothing to soothe his brother, whose eyes were wide and wild. "Come, we shall clean you and make for you a tea to calm your nerves."

"Brother, I do not think you are understanding the severity of my crimes!"

"You have committed no crime, Gul. You are not in any danger. Come now. Let us clean you before my darling Zareen comes to see what is the matter and thinks it is worse than it truly is. We also should pray for the Shah and his wife and lost child. By Allah, what a tragedy this is."

He was in the process of rinsing the blood from his brother's face when there was _another_ knock at the door. Both men froze when they heard it, meeting each others' eyes knowingly before Saeed stood to go and answer it.

"Brother, you're covered in blood!" Gul hissed as his brother neared the door. Saeed looked down at himself, shrugged, and answered the door. His men had seen him in covered in blood before. It was not an uncommon occurrence when raising boys.

Two of his officers stood there, looking about half asleep in their night clothes. It seemed they'd been woken as abruptly as he had. It wasn't often that his men would appear before him without first donning their uniforms, regardless of how abruptly they'd been summoned. _Perhaps the Shah_ is _as filled with rage as my brother has said,_ he thought.

"What brings you to my doorstep in the middle of the night?" he asked after his men failed to explain why they were at his doorstep. One of them snapped to attention then.

"Apologies, sir. It's been a hectic morning. The Shah's wife and unborn child have been killed and we have been searching for the killer. It is only just now that we have managed to reach you, sir. The search has taken us all over."

"The Shah's wife has been killed? By whom?"

"The Shah has told us it was the doctor. Gul Rahimi. Sir, I am unsure if you should participate in the manhunt, I mean, he is—"

"I am aware of my relation to Gul," Saeed said. The officer shook his head.

"No, sir, it's just— are you all right, sir? You're covered in blood." Saeed paused, blinking hard as he looked down at himself and laughed.

"My wife cut herself whilst preparing food for our breakfast last evening. I did not think to change before bed. Wallahi, I had completely forgotten." He threw his hands up and shook his head. "It has been a long day and an even longer night, Davud. If you will wait for me while I change my clothing, I will come and help you search for my brother."

The officers nodded, of _course_ they would wait for him. He was their superior, after all, second in command only to the Shah. Even the Shah's sons, daughters, and wives had less power than Saeed, but he didn't let it go to his head.

"I shall be out shortly," he told them as he shut the door once more, leaving them out in the street.

Once the door was closed, he frowned. He hadn't expected what his brother told him to be true. He hadn't expected that there would be a manhunt. He needed to see the Shah and calm him. Surely he could make him see reason. His brother was not a criminal, was _certainly_ not a murderer.

Before going to wake his wife and tell her what was going on so that she wouldn't worry, he went back to tell his brother to stay put. He retrieved a fresh change of clothing for both himself and his brother.

"Here," he said, tossing a change of clothes to his brother. "Put this on and lay low. Stay away from windows. If my men come back to the door, you will have to either hide in the kids' crawl space or flee out the back window. Do _not_ drag my family into this, do _not_ get caught in my house. I cannot be suspected of harboring a criminal, even if they have been wrongly accused. Even if they are my brother. You remember what happened to Mas'ud."

Mentioning his eldest son's name made his chest hurt. It hadn't even been a year since he'd had to carry out the child's sentence. The boy's eyes still haunted him when life was calm and quiet and he dared to relax.

"You can count on me, Saeed," said Gul as his brother closed the door once more. Saeed made his way back to the bedroom where his wife and now one of his daughters lay sleeping. He sat at the edge of the bed and gently nudged his wife's shoulder.

"Zareen," he whispered as he nudged her. "Zareen, I am sorry but I need to speak with you."

She groaned as she rolled over to face him, blinking hard.

"Saeed?" she asked. "What is it?"

He told her everything he knew, everything that Gul had told him and everything he had planned. She listened attentively, covering her mouth and murmuring a prayer for the deceased.

"What shall I do while you are off trying to convince the Shah of Gul's innocence?" she asked as Saeed stood up. He shook his head.

"I do not know, my love. I think perhaps it would be best if you wait up for me this time. My men may return to search the house. If they do, you know _nothing_ of Gul's presence here tonight, all right?"

He looked around the room and his eyes fell on his bloodied night clothes and his brother's blood-covered robe. Either one would be damning evidence if his men came back. Though he knew his wife was far stronger than she needed to be to take care of herself, he didn't want her life to be made unnecessarily difficult.

"Once I have gone, take this pile of clothing and burn it in the hearth," he told her. She nodded.

"You can count on me, habibi."

He looked back at her smiling, yet worried, face one last time before slipping out the door into the main room. When he opened the front door once more, he found his men half-asleep and leaning on each other for balance. He stepped outside and cleared his throat, causing both men to jump and scramble to right themselves.

"I need to speak to the Shah at once," he told them. "Call off the search until you have further word from me."

"We cannot do that, sir," one of them replied, his voice shaking. "It is a direct order from the Shah to find Gul Rahimi and bring him before the Shah for punishment."

"If anyone who answers to me finds and brings Gul to the Shah for punishment before I've spoken to the Shah, I shall personally see their blood stain the Shah's execution chamber," Saeed barked. The two officers exchanged moderately terrified glances before nodding once.

"We shall accompany you to the Shah's bedchamber, where he lies consumed with grief for the loss of his dear wife, and then we shall ensure that your order reaches the ear of all who serve under you, sir."

The Shah's palace was enshrouded in near-complete darkness as the three men approached. They could hear wailing in the streets; the news of the Shah's wife and baby's passing was spreading faster than a wildfire. So, it seemed, was the news that Gul Rahimi had supposedly killed them.

Saeed turned and dismissed his men once they delivered him to the Shah's bedchamber. Once they had gone, he knocked on the door.

"Come," called the Shah in a voice unlike any Saeed had ever heard from the man. He took a deep breath before pushing the heavy, ornate doors open to reveal a large room illuminated only by a few small candles near the bed where the Shah lay cradling his wife's lifeless body. The tiny flickering flames cast strange dancing shadows across the walls.

Before he even had a chance to close the door the unmistakable stench of death reached Saeed's nose. It was a terrible scent, one that reminded him of every single man he'd ever taken the life of. It mixed with the sharp, metallic scent of blood and caused Saeed's stomach to churn uncomfortably.

"Do you see what your brother has done?" the Shah asked as Saeed took in the scene playing out before him. "He has murdered her."

"Eminence," Saeed started, taking a deep breath. He didn't even know what to say. What _could_ he say? "I implore you, don't be too rash. I know my brother. He is a good man, a decent man. He has devoted his life to the study of medicine so as to make Persia a better place to live. Surely you cannot believe the man who has delivered every one of your children to be a murderer."

"He sat back and did nothing as she bled and bled. The babe did not breathe, did not cry, did not even twitch once your brother ripped him from my wife's womb. Gul Rahimi will be held responsible for his crimes. There will be punishment. Serious punishment."

"But your Majesty, surely you cannot believe that ending his life will somehow make this terrible situation any better? Killing my brother will not bring back your wife."

"It might not bring her back to life, but it _will_ bring justice for the ending of it," the Shah replied.

"I cannot order my men to kill my brother."

"Then I will."

"But sir—"

"And if you refuse to follow my orders, Saeed, yours will be the next blood spilt," roared the Shah. Saeed was taken aback by his anger even if he could understand it. He couldn't imagine losing his wife in such a horrific fashion. He knew he would blame anyone and everyone he could if he were in the Shah's situation, but he couldn't just let his brother be sentenced to death for failing in his job.

After all, had he been put to death the first time he'd made a mistake on the job, Saeed would hardly have made it to twenty. He was only thirty-five then, his brother just two years his senior.

"With all due respect, Highness, I would respectfully request that you mourn before passing final judgment on Gul. I beg it of you."

"Leave me, Saeed."

"But sir—"

"I will send for you if and when I wish to converse with you, Rahimi. Do _not_ attempt to overstep your bounds again. And know this: Should I find that you have been giving safe harbor to a murderous leech, it will not only be yours and Gul's heads rolling across the sand."


	9. Chapter Nine

_**[AN]: This chapter parallels the 1868, Persia chapters in Forgotten Melodies.**_

Chapter Nine

1868, Persia

The man entered the Shah's palace just before dawn, unnoticed; he just walked right on in like he owned the place. He did not have the time to stop and chat with guards, he did not have the time to announce his visit. The deposed Daroga seemed not to have the time for anything but his end goal as he raced across the palace grounds to the tower where his men, those who still claimed allegiance to him after all these years, swore that the deformed man was about to execute the last surviving Rahimi.

Well, the last surviving Rahimi that the Shah could reach. Saeed had stayed just beyond the Shah's grasp for seven years hiding in squalor in neighboring countries. How he managed to stay two steps ahead of him the Shah couldn't understand. He assumed it had to do with where his officers' loyalties laid, but even after replacing nearly every officer under his command he _still_ couldn't quite get close enough to capture Saeed Rahimi.

The confidence with which the man strode through the palace was such that none who spotted him had any idea he was not, in fact, supposed to be there. His heart was racing as he walked as quickly as he could without looking suspicious. _Please_ , he prayed silently, _please let me not be too late!_

Though I had been years since he had last had cause to traverse the winding corridors of the Shah's palace, Saeed managed to find the hired killer's bedchamber quite quickly. Pressing his ear to the cool wood of the door, he heard nothing from within the room. That frightened him.

As the first rays of sunlight began to peek over the palace walls, Saeed knocked on the door. He tried to keep his wits about him, tried to keep a level head, but with every moment that passed his worry grew. After a few moments, he knocked again.

A moment later, the door hit him directly in the face, making painful contact with his cheek and brow bones and knocking him several steps backward. Once the pain subsided enough that he could see again, he found himself face to face with the deformed boy he had helped to capture for the Shah so many years ago. The boy's face, what Saeed could see of it at least, bore an expression of utter confusion.

" _You_ ," Saeed hissed, bracing himself for a fight. There was no telling how much the boy had been told since the disgraced man's hasty exodus from the country. Saeed had to be prepared for the worst. "What have you done with my daughter?"

"What—" The confusion on the assassin's face only deepened as he processed the question.

" _Where is my Fautimeh?_ " Saeed roared.

Something seemed to click in the assassin's mind. He stepped aside and gestured to the bed. "Fautimeh is sleeping there, in bed," he said. Saeed hurried past him and scooped the girl up in his arms, joyous tears welling in his eyes as he hugged the small child to his chest.

"Daddy!" The sound of Fautimeh's voice was all it took. Saeed sobbed as he fell to his knees, holding his child as tight as he could. The last remaining piece of his beloved wife was cradled there in his arms.

He could feel the eyes of the assassin on him as he worked to calm himself and check Fautimeh over, but he wouldn't address him again until he was certain his daughter had not been harmed.

"My little princess," he said when he could finally find his voice again. "Has he harmed you?" The enthusiastic way that she shook her head, no, brought fresh tears to his eyes. "Has he touched you as a husband would?" Again the girl shook her head, no. Saeed breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

It took him a moment to compose himself and stand once more. He turned to face the masked man, but he did not look him in the eye.

"There is talk that the Shah's assassin has killed the girl that was to be his child bride," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "I had not learned the fate of my daughter until after the rumors had already reached my ears. It seems that one cannot trust all that he hears."

It was only then that he made eye contact. Had he ever noticed just _how_ yellow the boy's eyes were? He gasped at the intensity of the boy's gaze, though there was no aggression there. The boy was trying to make sense of what was happening before him. Saeed couldn't fault him for that.

"I don't know if you remember me, boy. But I remember you. How you've changed since the day Yousef and Nazir threw you unceremoniously in the back of our cart, so many years ago."

"Saeed?" The name was a breathless, uncertain whisper, but it made the man smile. He bowed slightly as he introduced himself properly.

"The disgraced Saeed Rahimi, former head of the Shah's police," he said. The boy cocked his head.

"Disgraced? How?"

Saeed grimaced as he finally put Fautimeh back down on the bed. As he straightened his back once more it seemed that every joint in his body popped and snapped. The sensation wasn't entirely unpleasant.

"Come," he said. "We shall not talk of such things in front of my daughter." The masked man gestured to the balcony and Saeed nodded in wordless agreement. He squinted as they stepped out into the sun. It was already quite hot out and the sun wasn't yet all that high in the sky. As Saeed opened his mouth to speak, the masked man excused himself and slipped back inside.

Saeed cocked his head, curious, as he watched the man dig through the chest of drawers that stood near the door before pulling out a shiny, light-colored scarf. As he walked back outside, the masked man tied the scarf across his head, effectively protecting his skull from the harsh sunlight.

Saeed leaned against the railing and looked out at the city. He could feel the other man's eyes boring holes into his side, but he couldn't for the life of him find the words he wanted to say. There was so much he wanted to say to this boy that his thoughts became jumbled as he even considered where to begin.

"That day so long ago, how can I remember it so clearly still?" he asked finally. Though he was not watching the boy, he could tell he'd startled him by speaking. "Why do you stand out in my memory, when I cannot even recall the face of my late wife?"

He sighed, hanging his head. That troubled him far more than he'd allowed himself to believe. In life, his dear Zareen had been the light and the good in his life. No matter the horrors he'd witnessed on the job he knew he had her heart, and she had his.

"Where have you been all this time?" The boy's words startled Saeed, pulling him back to reality. He glanced up at the masked man, smiling a sad smile. _He doesn't know_ , he thought. _The Shah never told him._

"I was stripped of my title when my brother's sentence was carried out. Without my job, my family suffered. My wife and I had no choice but to sell our children to the Shah—" Saeed glanced over his shoulder at his daughter. "—And still we were unable to afford to continue living. My wife died in the pain of childbirth, the very same as the wife of the Shah. Not two hours passed after her last breath and officers I once commanded were at my doorstep with a message from the Shah."

He paused, sighing again. It had been so long since he'd thought of those final moments with Zareen. She'd gone so pale at the end, her hands were so cold. He shook his head in a vain attempt to chase away the memories.

"Two of my children had been sold and were already in a caravan heading east. This was four years ago. They did not tell me which of my children had been sold, so I did not know who was still here, alone, at the palace. And then last month I was told in passing that my child who had remained here had perished in an accident. It was only becasue one of my men— my former men, excuse me," he corrected himself. "He saw her with you last night. He had spent many weeks with my family before everything fell apart. He knew that you had been gifted my Fautimeh and I had been lied to."

The man in the mask stared at him for a long time before finally he spoke. "That man in the cell… That first man that I…"

"That was my brother, you heard correctly," Saeed replied, laughing darkly. "Did you think he was kept alive because the Shah wished it? My men had a standing order that _no one_ was to execute my brother. My hope was that the Shah would realize how foolish it was to blame my brother for his wife's death. Twins and then another son followed Azadeh within three years; the Shah's wife was simply worn out. My brother tried to convince the Shah of this before she fell pregnant, but he obviously was not willing to listen."

"And you lost your job after the execution because of your insubordination."

"Yes, and no. When the Shah decided to use you for your particular… skill… there was no further use for me. He absorbed the police back into the ranks of his guards and convinced you to dispose of the ones he didn't trust."

The aging Persian turned back to look at his daughter, smiling when he found that she had already fallen back asleep on the assassin's bed. He watched her for a few moments, his heart so filled with love that he felt he might burst. The years since he'd seen his daughter had not been kind to either of them, but now that they were reunited there wasn't a force on Earth that could tear them apart again.

The idea hit him like a stone to the back of the head. He looked the other man up and down in his peripheral vision, hardly able to believe that such a strange idea had come to him, much less that it seemed like a _good_ idea.

 _I can't believe I'm doing this,_ he thought as he cleared his throat.

"I want you to come with us, boy. Before you protest, think back on all that I just told you. Does the Shah really seem to be a man you want to continue to serve?" He watched the masked man carefully, knowing full well that what he had just suggested could lead to his demise. His gut told him otherwise. He hoped his gut was right.

"But—" the boy said after a few agonizing moments spent trying to fit the information he'd just been told in with what he'd known for the better part of his life. "But— All of this had already begun when you brought me to the Shah, how could you speak so highly of him then?"

"A man in your position ought already know the answer to that," Saeed said grimly. "It is illegal to speak ill of the Shah. Punishable by death." He looked at the younger man expectantly.

There was a long, not exactly uncomfortable silence between the two men. Saeed found himself wondering whether the boy would indeed choose to come with Fautimeh and him. He even found himself almost _hoping_ the boy would.

"There's nothing for me out there," the masked man said finally, thoroughly dismissing the idea of leaving.

"There is life beyond those walls," Saeed countered. "You might have a life here, but you aren't _living._ You take lives for money. All your finery, your masks, your silks… paid for with blood money doing an easy job that just about any man can be trained to do. But sooner or later you're going to realize that it's not such an easy job. You'll find it's dragging on your conscience, weighing down your mind. Killing for a living _isn't_ living, boy. Beyond the palace walls—"

"Beyond the palace walls there's nothing for me but the opportunity to be caught and sold as a slave once more."

Saeed grinned slyly. _Foolish child_ , he thought. _You've just given yourself away._

"You're no longer the child that Yousef found so many years ago, boy. Now you're simply a nameless killer. A coward."

The masked man growled. "I am no coward."

"You are afraid to leave here because you fear nobody will ever accept you the way the Shah has. I hate to be the one to tell it to you, but the Shah sees you as little more than the freak you see in the mirror. Sure, you might be capable of performing odd tasks for him, but he's used you to strike fear into the hearts of his subjects and to inflict death upon those he does not care for.

"I don't know what _your_ definition of a coward is, but from where I am standing, I can see two people: a coward and my sleeping daughter." With that, Saeed walked back inside and sat beside his sleeping daughter on the bed. If _that_ didn't convince the boy to come with them when they fled that night, he was certain nothing would.

The boy followed not too far behind, rubbing the back of his neck and actively trying not to meet the Persian's eye.

"If I go with you," there was an incredible amount of hesitation as the boy spoke, as though he didn't want to ask what he was trying to ask for fear of an answer that would disappoint him. "If I go with you, can you promise that I will not be sold back into slavery?" Saeed looked up at the overly tall man. "And that I will not be sold to another freak show?"

"You have my word that all I want is to get out of the country with my daughter. I have limited resources, but what I have I have to share."

Once again, the masked man fell silent. Saeed sighed and turned his attention back to his daughter. She looked so calm as she slept, blissfully unaware of the night ahead.

The masked man inhaled sharply, startling the girl awake and causing Saeed to nearly jump straight out of his skin. "I do not know why," he started, taking a deep breath. "But I trust you, Saeed. If you say that it is in my best interest to leave here, then I will go with you."

Saeed smiled warmly, grateful for the addition of the Shah's most skilled assassin to his escape plan. _Maybe_ , he thought, _just maybe we'll stand a chance of escaping now_.

"Gather your belongings, then. We leave at nightfall."


	10. Chapter Ten

_**AN: This fic may or may not update as scheduled for the next month or so. Star Wars has eaten my soul and I just... don't have it in me to work on this story with any regularity.**_

Chapter Ten

1861, Persia

Everything seemed to be moving at half its normal speed that morning as Saeed woke and took breakfast with his wife and children. He'd known this day was coming. The Shah had not allowed him to forget it, in fact, not since he'd chosen a precise date for the deed to finally be done.

"Husband, you look as though you've seen a djinn," Zareen said as she cleared their plates. She was heavily pregnant with what they were hoping would be the last child they would be blessed with but had not yet begun delegating her duties around the house to their children. "What is wrong?"

"It is nothing for you to concern yourself with, habibti," he replied, shaking his head. _Fool_ , he thought, _you mustn't allow Zareen to worry for you in her condition._ "Just a passing memory."

She crossed the room to lean against him and press a kiss into his hairline. "If only I could chase away those memories," she murmured as she draped her arms around him. Saeed gently nudged her until she sat in his lap.

"With you by my side, my love, I would gladly relive those memories daily just to feel the weight of you against me."

"Is that a remark about my weight, habibi?" Zareen asked, an offended look in her eyes. Saeed's eyes widened.

"No, no of course—" Laughing, Zareen leaned in and kissed her husband to silence him. Saeed melted into the kiss, wrapping his arms tightly around his wife.

"You will be late this morning," she scolded when they finally came up for air, their faces a mere breath apart. "Will the Shah not be angry with you?"

"Let him be angry," he replied. "You are far more important to me than anything the Shah could need me for today." _I am not prepared to step over the threshold into a world without my brother_ , he thought as he pulled her in for another kiss. She obliged happily.

It was only when there was an all-too-familiar knock at the door that Saeed finally let his wife stand again.

"Shall I answer the door, habibi?" she asked. He nodded.

"Tell them I will be just a minute more." With that, he slipped back into the bedroom they shared with their children. Though the sun was already high in the sky, the children were sleeping peacefully. He stood just inside the door and watched them for a long minute before turning and heading back for the door where one or two of his men would be waiting for him. As he approached, he witnessed a rare candid moment between one of his newest men an his wife. Their child must have been kicking, as he was on his knees with his ear pressed to Zareen's belly. He was laughing, as was Zareen.

The moment ended too soon as the young man realized that Saeed was standing right there. He scrambled to his feet, clearing his throat and mumbling apologies so quickly that the Daroga could not make any of them out clearly. He smiled.

"I heard that your wife is also with child, Amir."

"Y-Yes, sir," the young man replied, straightening his back. Saeed couldn't help but laugh. "It is her first child— ou-our first child."

"And you sound positively terrified, Amir. You will make a terrific father."

"How— How can you know that?"

"Because you're terrified. Now, what has the Shah put on our agenda for the day?"

"We are to attend an execution this afternoon. We also have a new recruit to show the ropes," Amir said. "He is waiting with Mateo and Isaac at the tower."

 _The tower._ Saeed couldn't hide his disgust as he thought of the tower that served as the Shah's private prison. If you were sent there you knew the only way you were coming out was wrapped in a burial shroud. He could still see the sick pleasure in the Shah's eyes as he decreed that the police would be moving from their current, properly central location to the prison tower. He knew precisely the message he was sending Saeed. It was only a matter of time before it would be _his_ neck on the chopping block.

"When is the execution?" he asked. Amir shook his head. _He wants us to_ attend _an execution. What is he planning?_

"This afternoon," he said. "That's all that I was told."

"I suppose we shall find out soon enough," Saeed said with a sigh. He turned to his wife and cupped her face with his hand. "I will see you after nightfall, habibti. Do not over-exert yourself today. I worry when I have to leave you alone."

"I will see you when you return," she replied, kissing his palm.

Amir and Saeed walked together in silence, neither man entirely certain they could trust the other. Saeed was well aware that the Shah had been planting spies and trying to catch him doing something bad. He was almost certain that Amir was one such spy. And Amir had been told such stories by the royal guard that he was nearly convinced that Saeed had orchestrated the murder of the Shah's wife.

"Sir!" Isaac called as Amir and Saeed entered the tower. "Sir, this is Rahman. He's one of Nazir's cousins."

Saeed breathed an audible sigh of relief. A bit of luck; finally a new recruit who didn't come directly recommended by the Shah himself. Isaac laughed knowingly, glaring at Amir, who shrank back near where Mateo stood.

"It is good to meet you, Rahman," Saeed said, embracing the man. "Your cousin Nazir is a good man, one of my most trusted men."

"I know, sir. He speaks quite highly of you. He recounts the tale of how you and he brought the Shah's precious new toy back with a load of slaves at every family gathering."

That was when the gears in Saeed Rahimi's mind began to turn and he realized, horrified, precisely what was about to happen. That boy— that terrified, deformed boy— was going to be used to carry out the order that his men had refused for years. He'd known the Shah was a corrupt man, but to force a _child_ to take the life of an innocent man…

"Sir?" Isaac's eyes, wide and full of worry, brought Saeed back from the far off land he'd gone to in his mind just then. He blinked and looked at the man expectantly. "What do you want us to do? I mean, it's your brother, sir."

"I know, Isaac," Saeed said. "It would seem there is nothing we can do."

"There is always something you can do. We could sneak him out—"

"Isaac…"

"—And we could bring him across the border, the Shah will never—"

"Isaac, _please…"_

"Sir, you can't just take this lying down! Gul did nothing wrong!"

"My brother died many moons ago. The man who currently resides at the top of the tower has long since lost what made him my brother. At this point it will be a mercy killing." Saeed tried very hard to convince himself of that.

"But sir—"

"Isaac, I know that you are just trying to spare me another heartbreak. I appreciate it. But I fear that it is time to let him go." _I must speak with the Shah at once. There is precious little time remaining before all hope is indeed lost for poor Gul._

Once again, Saeed turned his attention to the new man. "If you'll follow Isaac and Amir, they will show you the ropes, Rahman." The younger man nodded and turned to Isaac, an eager smile on his face. Isaac looked at Saeed, a glint of intrigue in his eye. Saeed shook his head. "I've got a small bit of personal business to attend to. I will return before the sun begins to set."

Before his men could utter even a word of protest, he had turned and walked out of the tower and back into the blazing sunlight. He was halfway across the courtyard before his knees buckled and he toppled to the ground, fighting back the sobs that threatened his career and his life. He wasn't allowed to show emotion, not on the job. Not when it was his son awaiting execution and _certainly_ not when it was his brother. _Get it together, Rahimi_ , he told himself. _There's a time and a place but it's not here. It's not here._

He composed himself quickly and hurried on. He had precious little time before the assassin would carry out his brother's sentence. He had one final chance to save his brother's life as well as his own.


End file.
